


i'm gonna kiss you like the sun browns you

by getmean



Series: lighthouse au [2]
Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1970s, Fluff, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, lighthouse keeper snafu, smoking big fat doinks at the lighthouse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22373152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getmean/pseuds/getmean
Summary: “So you’re telling me,” Snafu says, watching Eugene unpack his overnight bag on the floor, “That you crossed state lines with pot.”Eugene, kneeled on the hardwood of Snafu’s bedroom, his belongings fanned out around him, grins. “Well, there was a ferry. Don’t that make it international waters out here?”
Relationships: Merriell "Snafu" Shelton/Eugene Sledge
Series: lighthouse au [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610530
Comments: 14
Kudos: 40





	i'm gonna kiss you like the sun browns you

**Author's Note:**

> this is an olddddd ask box prompt from tumblr that i got a burst of inspiration for the other day :~) and here she is!

“So you’re telling me,” Snafu says, watching Eugene unpack his overnight bag on the floor, “That you crossed state lines with pot.” 

Eugene, kneeled on the hardwood of Snafu’s bedroom, his belongings fanned out around him, grins. “Well, there was a ferry. Don’t that make it international waters out here?”

Snafu splutters, caught off-guard between a laugh and a drag from his cigarette. Eugene’s grin stretches, and then he drops his attention back to his bag, back to all the carefully rolled little pairs of socks and underwear. If Snafu didn’t know any better, he’d almost have him pegged for a military man, what with the methodical way he’d obviously stacked — and was currently unstacking — numerous rolls of clothing. Way too much clothing for two weeks on the island. _I like to be prepared_ , he’d said once, when Snafu had made fun of him for it. For what, Snafu still didn’t know, but if he ever had a shortage of briefs he knew just the man to turn to.

“So you got plans for it or is it just for lookin’ pretty?” Snafu asks, hip against the windowsill as he looks out across the coast. A bright day; sunny, the sea calm as glass. Eugene had picked a good day to come, a good day to catch the ferry. 

The seagulls stamp their feet on the roof above their heads, and Eugene places his toiletries bag on the floor in front of him, and says, “If you think pot is pretty then you got me worried, Snaf.”

“I ain’t ever called you pretty,” he counters with, and crushes his cigarette butt out in the ashtray on the sill before turning to give Eugene a hand with his things.

———

The very first time Eugene had come up to visit from San Francisco, Snafu had been nervous. Like they wouldn’t be able to capture that urgent little spark that had sprung up between them during Eugene’s last time on the island. He’d worried the whole drive down to the docks, the rain lashing against the windscreen as he’d bumped along over the ditches and potholes in the road, so loud he’d barely been able to hear the radio over it, dipping in and out of signal. Eugene had been soaked when he’d picked him up; flung himself into the bench seat of the truck and gotten water everywhere, in such a hurry to get out of the rain that he’d seemed to forget the enormity of the moment. Then, he’d turned, and he’d blinked at Snafu with wet lashes, and Snafu had bundled him so close to kiss him that he ended up with the front of his sweater all wet from Eugene’s jacket. 

Since then, they’ve spent at least a week a month together. Snafu had visited San Francisco, had stayed in Eugene’s wonky little three-storey crammed to the gills with long-haired students and dopey hippies, had walked to the bay and declared it _not much, compared to home_. Had bummed around, kissed Eugene in a crowded, dark nightclub, had sex with him in his bed with the noise of the city below. Then Eugene had come to him, and him to Eugene, and so on and so forth. 

Selfishly, he likes when Eugene comes to him the most. There’s a reason why he chose the solitude of the lighthouse, after all. There’s nothing like waking up next to Eugene’s warm body and going about his chores, and slipping back into bed with him after they were done. Cold nose to the back of Eugene’s neck just to hear him grumble. The words _I love you_ have been lingering on his tongue for weeks. 

And now, Eugene brings him pot. That I love you is teetering closer and closer to the edge of his tongue every day. 

Snafu first tried pot in Vietnam; nasty, dry shit either smoked rolled up in someone’s torn out Bible page or a knocked together shotgun pipe. It was enough. Did the job it was meant to do, which was to make Vietnam seem a little further away even just for a little while, but he never liked it much. Made his mouth dry, make him jump at shadows. Then he stayed in Eugene’s narrow artists’ hide of a home during a February cold snap, and they spent the weekend lounging in bed, getting stoned and making hideous concoctions of food, and it was then that Snafu decided maybe he was ready to give pot a second chance. 

As of right now, he’s smoking a cigarette. Or rather, he’s rolling one, stood out on that narrow little whitewashed strip that rings the beacon, sea wind in his hair and in his lungs. Soon to be replaced with smoke. Eugene is in bed back at the house, and the sky is lightening above the still sea, blush pink and stretching its fingers to touch everything it can reach, and Snafu is all full up with something he can’t put name to but knows he hasn’t felt since the last time Eugene came to stay. 

“I love you,” he says, out loud to the world. The sea whispers back, miles below his feet.

He wipes a rag across the face of the lamp, flicks his thumbnail against it just to hear the noise ring out, and then jogs his way back down the spiralling stone steps. The day is warm enough already that he’s getting hot under his sweater; no longer needs to be bundled from his ankles to his ears just to move around out here. Still the wind cracks the windsock straight most days, snatches the smoke from his lungs before he can even exhale, but it’s good. It feels good, to have summer right on his doorstep. 

Summers in San Francisco. Jesus, Snafu bets the bay stinks.

Cold nose pressed to the warm skin behind Eugene’s ear. He comes awake all at once, batting a grinning Snafu away as he groans and rolls over, pink-cheeked and warm, pillow creases on his face.

“I hate when you do that.”

“You just smell so good,” Snafu quips, hand on the dresser as he eases his boots off his feet. “C’mon, move over.”

Eugene moves an inch, maybe more, and Snafu barely even complains as he tucks himself into the little strip of mattress Eugene has deigned to spare him. The seagulls are making a racket above them, again. Eugene yelps as Snafu wiggles his cold hands up the back of his shirt to warm them up.

“Snafu!”

“Gonna be a nice one today,” he says, ignoring how Eugene is trying to wiggle away. It’s one way to get him to give up some bed-space, at least. He kisses at the hollow of Eugene’s throat, at the jut of his collarbones, smiling into the skin there as Eugene’s hands come to settle in his hair. “Wanna pack some food and take off down to the beach?” 

Eugene sighs above him, sounding half asleep. “Sounds nice,” he mumbles, and hums when Snafu scoots up a little to kiss him. His hand pats clumsily at Snafu’s jaw. “Hey.”

“Hey, you.” Snafu kisses him again, iloveyous hot and piling up at the back of his throat, Eugene’s scent all in his nose and on his sheets. His hand grips at Eugene’s hip, and he grins at the interested noise he makes at the touch.

The morning melts away, the rest of the sunrise left to go on unwatched as they sweat into the bedsheets, Eugene’s hand gripped hard into Snafu’s hair, his legs up around his waist.

————

They have a spot on the beach that they go to for picnics; just sheltered from the wind that races down the flat, straight sweep of sand that lies at the toes of the cliff. Tucked in between tide pools; a warm, still little corner that rarely gets many visitors apart from themselves. 

Eugene spreads a blanket on the sand, expression veiled behind his dark sunglasses as he turns to watch Snafu strip his t-shirt over his head. The sun is a warm hand on his back, on the nape of his neck, and he stretches into it with a grunt. His back pops. Eugene’s nose wrinkles.

“You’re gonna burn,” Snafu mutters, before Eugene can tell him off for cracking his back. He gestures at Eugene with his cigarette. “Cover up, boo.”

They’d had to fight their way through a stubborn patch of gorse on their walk down from the lighthouse, and Eugene’s forearms are all scratched up in angry red lines from the spikes. Snafu watches him rub at them, standing there all handsome and stupid, his chest already pinking from the sun. “What? I’ve got sunscreen on.”

Snafu grins at him, wandering closer so he can press his fingertips to Eugene’s chest. He sways with the push. The skin of his chest fades from white back to pink. “You’re gonna burn,” Snafu says again, before taking a seat on the blanket with a huff. “And I know that ‘cos we’re gonna smoke, and then we’re gonna fall asleep.”

Eugene’s expression is inscrutable behind his sunglasses, but then his mouth purses and he reaches for his t-shirt again. Snafu doesn’t need to see his eyes to know he’s rolling them.

“C’mere,” he says, cross legged on the blanket and sweat already beginning to spring up from the high afternoon sun above them. He extends his arm, and Eugene flops down next to him, tucking his whole gangly self into Snafu’s side. He drops a kiss to the hot crown of Eugene’s head, and thinks, _I love you so much I think I could keep the sun from you just by wanting it._ He can’t say it. Instead he adds, “Wanna smoke an authentic ‘Nam joint?”

Eugene snorts, shifting out from under Snafu’s arm to drag the shoppers bag they’d loaded up with food closer. “Absolutely not.” And then, “Anyway, Snafu, you roll the worst joints outta anybody I know.”

Snafu kisses his teeth, shoves at Eugene’s shoulder just to see him grin. “Yeah, yeah, pass me the fuckin’ water willya?” 

Snafu picks his way through the bag as Eugene rolls, a plastic Tupperware lid balanced precariously on his knee a makeshift tray. Apples, a knife, sodas, a sleeve of crackers and a steadily-overheating wedge of soft cheese that’s been languishing in Snafu’s fridge for the better part of a week. Punnet of strawberries, punnet of raspberries. Something about loving Eugene is making him wanna buy a cool bag, ice packs; makes him wanna fucking home-make. His little bachelor lifestyle he’d settled into after moving here now sits on him like an ill-fitting suit, one that he’s quickly outgrowing the confines of. He wants one than one towel in his bathroom, goddamn. He wants one of those toothbrush holders that can house two. 

The waves break on the shore, not a stone’s throw from their little camp tucked in from the bite of the wind. Snafu watches them, knees drawn to his chest and his hands knotted together against the backs of his knees, wondering just when it was the silence between them became so easy. Then Eugene’s hand finds the nape of his neck, thumb rubbing just behind his ear.

“Lighter?” 

Snafu hands him it, watching as he rolls the flint, over and over until a flame finally jumps from it. He touches the end of the joint to it, puffs on it to get it going. “I still can’t believe you smuggled me weed,” Snafu says, the smells of the beach; hot sand, salt, that sweet seaweed smell, becoming eclipsed as the smoke from the joint catches on the faint breeze.

“You’re making me out to be some kinda drug lord,” Eugene says, handing the joint off to Snafu, who pinches it between his fingers and takes a pleased drag. “Like I don’t buy it from my roommate’s cousin.”

“Which one?” Snafu asks, leaning back on his hand as he takes another drag, slower this time. The hot smoke hits the back of his throat, and he coughs, groaning. “Jesus.”

“The one who looks like John, Paul, George and Ringo all kinda,” he motions with his hands, “Mashed up together.”

Snafu hums, passing the joint back to Eugene as he flips through the incomplete and badly organised Filofax of Eugene’s rotating cast of roommates in his head. They all pretty much look the same to the untrained eye. “Don’t remember him.” 

“You told him to eat shit.”

“Doesn’t sound like me,” Snafu mutters, and then glances at Eugene out of the corner of his eye, grinning as he catches Eugene’s smile. “I’ve told all your roommates to fuck off.”

“They hated the war,” Eugene murmurs, halfway under his breath, and Snafu drops his head back to laugh, right up into the bright blue sky above them. Lightness is bubbling in his chest, and he takes a grateful draw from the joint as it makes its way back to him, chasing the edges of that feeling.

“What, and I didn’t too?” It’s an old argument, and one that’s more joke than actual argument these days anyway. Some close, intimate little inside joke that never fails to leave Snafu richly amused. “Fuck, wish someone coulda told me that I was enjoyin’ myself out there.”

“C’mon,” Eugene says, slinging his arm around Snafu’s shoulders to tug him into his side. Snafu goes easily, ash dropping hot onto the bare skin of his stomach as he’s jostled. He hisses, brushes it away, and Eugene squeezes his shoulder. “Alright?”

“Good,” he purrs, melting into Eugene’s front. He laughs, again, feeling Eugene’s chin come to rest at the crown of his head as he plucks the joint from Snafu’s fingers. “I missed you.”

“Missed you too,” he says, a kiss following his words. “Missed you like hell, missed this place, too. San Francisco stinks in the summer.”

“We’ll have to parade you around the village some time. The old women miss you even worse.”

Eugene snorts, and then there’s the rasp of the paper burning down, quiet and barely-there against the sound of the sea. Again, that smell of sweet smoke. Snafu can feel it going to his head already; eyes heavy and impossible to hold open, his mouth stretching in a stupid, sloppy smile he can’t contain for nothing. He squeezes at Eugene’s hand, the one curled against his chest, peace settling over him like a thick wool blanket.

“It feels so good when you’re back here with me,” he says, quietly, because words so earnest need to be dropped low to keep them real. “Feels just like you never left.” He lets his head loll against Eugene’s shoulder, accepting the joint that swims into his vision with a smile. 

“You’re just saying that because I brought you pot,” Eugene murmurs, lips right up against the shell of Snafu’s ear. He groans, and squirms away, pressing his ear to his shoulder as he rights himself. The world tilts around him, shimmery horizon dipping for a moment before everything remembers exactly where it’s supposed to be. 

“You always see through me, Sledge.”

Eugene smiles at that, and when he turns away to pull a soda from their little clutch of goods, Snafu can see the crinkle of his eyes, can imagine how soft his expression is behind those blankly round little glasses. On impulse, he snatches them from his face, hand moving slow through the air like honey. The look Eugene gives him is affronted.

“Hey! I have very sun-sensitive eyes.”

Snafu grins at him, settling the sunglasses onto his own face, the joint burned down low and hot between his knuckles. “I’m shocked,” he drawls, and watches in delight as Eugene’s brows beetle. His eyes are red; heavy and cute. Eugene is at his funniest and most easy to tease when stoned — and Snafu is at his most liable to tease. “C’mon, don’t scowl,” he wheedles, swaying close to Eugene, who rolls his eyes despite the fact that his mouth is twitching with the urge to smile. “You’ll get wrinkles.”

Eugene laughs, then, finally. Laughs and shakes his head, shoving playfully at Snafu’s shoulder. “God, I can’t stand you,” he says, and then accepts the kiss with Snafu crowds in close for, swaps his lukewarm soda for the ends of the joint so Snafu can work the cap off with his keys. 

The afternoon winds down into sunbathing, their heads tipped close together on the blanket, Eugene working more sunscreen into his skin, the smell nostalgic and pleasant, coconut and jasmine. He rubs Snafu down with some too, and he’s just sleepy and stoned enough to allow it, dutifully flopping over onto his belly so Eugene can get his back, groaning as he works his thumbs into the knots of tension built up there. The world behind his eyes is red and orange, all the colours of heat, of summer. Hot air trapped behind the lenses of his stolen glasses, sweat a sting in his eyes. The hollow of Eugene’s throat is shiny with it, the pits and the back of his tee transparent with it. They take a dip in the sea to cool off, and Snafu, still feeling silly and lightheaded from their shared joint, grapples with him in an attempt to force him under. Hands slipping on pale wet skin. Eugene beats him, that transformative grin Snafu has always loved so much lighting his face up, and his lips taste like salt when he kisses Snafu, the sea refreshing and cool lapping around their chests. 

Snafu gets sand in the crackers, and in the cheese. They settle for drinking the now-warm water instead, picking through the fruit. Snafu takes a swig from the plastic bottle and grimaces at the mouthful he takes; that hot plasticky taste. It always reminds him of Vietnam, somehow, the tang of the iodine tablets. Then Eugene offers him a neatly sliced wedge of apple on the blade of his knife, and Snafu takes it, chases the plastic-bottle-taste from his mouth. Eugene rolls another joint, and they share it, sinking lower into that pleasant, wrapped-up-in-cotton-wool feeling.

“We can go to the hide tomorrow,” Snafu offers, eyes on the sea, the shimmer of heat on the horizon. He accepts another slice of apple, and eats it, lets himself be gathered up against Eugene’s chest again. A gull swoops low, and lands, begins to pick its way through the garbage at the tide line. “Or for a drive, a hike, whatever you want.”

He feels Eugene laugh against his back, the sound rumbling up and through him. He imagines the transference of Eugene’s amusement into him, his bare skin sucking it up, and finds the corners of his mouth quirking the more he thinks about it. Infected. Hasn’t he always thought that Eugene has the most infectious smile? “I’m happy to bum around with you and do shit all,” he says, and his arm tightens around Snafu’s chest. “How’s that sound?”

“Sounds perfect,” Snafu murmurs, tipping his head back against Eugene’s shoulder for a kiss. He’s so warm, so comfortable, his eyes feeling so heavy in his face, that he feels like he could slip off into a nap at any second. And then, tongue loosened by the warmth, by the closeness, by the joint long gone and crushed out in the sand, he says, “I love you.”

A beat of silence. The rush of the sea fills the space. Snafu’s heart feels like it’s beating so fast in his chest at the rush of adrenaline those carelessly slipped out words have caused that he’s sure Eugene must be able to feel it. He doesn’t move. The sun is so bright and high behind Eugene’s head that he can’t make out his expression, and it panics him for a second, makes him glad he’d snagged those sunglasses when he had. He’s too stoned to school his expression. Then Eugene makes a low noise in his throat, and his nose nudges to the sweaty curl of hair right behind Snafu’s ear.

“Say that again,” he murmurs, arm tightening around Snafu. 

Snafu sets his eyes on the shape of the lighthouse looming over them both, and wills his heart to slow. “You heard me.”

“I just wanna hear it again.” Eugene, ever stubborn. Snafu’s throat is so dry it sticks when he swallows. 

“I love you,” he says, and Eugene kisses at the shell of his ear, smelling like the sea, smelling like clean sweat. Then he laughs, that infectious noise, and Snafu cranes his neck just to see what emotion is in his eyes but the sun is still keeping him from it.

“Goddamn,” Eugene says, and there’s something there in his voice that settles Snafu, settles his beating heart. Something soft, something tender and packed with affection.”I wanted to say it first.”

Now Snafu rolls his eyes. He sits up straight, and Eugene lets him go, face open and gentle and smiling when Snafu rounds on him. “Say it now, then.” He doesn’t mean to make it sound so challenging. Eugene’s teeth sink into his lower lip, playful. “Gene, c’mon.”

“I love you,” he murmurs, and extends his hand to nudge his knuckles to the centre of Snafu’s chest. “I love you, you know that.”

Snafu grabs at his hand before he can pull it back, watches as Eugene’s eyelids lower, his smile tugging at his mouth. His wrist is hot in Snafu’s hand, and he imagines he can feel the beat of Eugene’s pulse against his fingertips. Pulsing just like his own. The momentousness of the moment settles over him all at once, and it makes him laugh; something giddy rising up in his chest. Eugene laughs too, follows him over the edge into the near-hysterical little fit of laughter their twin confessions have given rise to. Snafu tugs him closer by the wrist, and Eugene goes easily, kissing Snafu slowly, carefully, like he’s savouring it. And the sun beats down on their heads, their shoulders, the distant rush of the waves swelling into the silence that falls between them as they tumble backwards onto the blanket.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! :~)


End file.
